Nathaniel Hawthorne's Biography
He was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804; he is seen as a key figure in the development of America literature.
He wrote during the romantic era of writing, which was an European artistic and intellectual movement of the early 19th century. Nathaniel is best-know today for his many short stories :“My Kinsman, Major Molineux" (1832), "Roger Malvin's Burial" (1832), "Young Goodman Brown" (1835), and the collection Twice-Told Tales, his four major romances were: The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852), and The Marble Faun (1860)
He died in May 19, 1864.
Summary of the story
DR.Heidegger wanted to made a little experiment but he needed help, then he decided to invited to his study four friends, those friends had several things in common, all of them were old and had lived very sad and unfortunate lives. At the moment that his guests were in his laboratory, he decided to showed them a rose, that rose was special. it was saved for fifty-five years, he poured some water onto the rose and suddenly the rose began to bloom, in that moment his friends knew that he had water of the fountain of youth, the Dr. offered to shared his water but he proposed them not to repeated the same mistakes that they did when they were young and he did not told them that the other part of the experiment was to analyzed their reaction with their new youthfulness
Story's Plot
Conflict
Dr Heidegger wanted to know with his experiment if the people could learned with the mistakes that they did in the past, when they had another opportunity to fix them in the present.
Rising Action
I. The DR.Heidegger decided to made an experiment.
II. He invited 4 friends to meet with him at his laboratory in his house.
III. DR.Heidegger asked to his friends if they wanted to cooperate with his experiment.
IV. He opened a book and he showed them a fifty-five years rose.
V. DR.Heidegger picked up a vase that it was filled with a liquid that looked like water, and he poured some water onto the rose.
VI. A few moments later the rose began to bloom.
VII. DR.Heidegger explained to his guest that the water came from the fountain of youth and it had the property to made the things young again.
VIII. DR. Heidegger filled 4 glasses with water from the fountain of youth, and gave to his friends,but before that he gave the water the azked them, if they wanted to made the same mistakes that they did in the past.
Climax
They broke the vase that contained the water into a thousand pieces. The precious water flowed slowly across the floor. All of a sudden they became to be older again like the doctor’s rose.
Resolution
The doctor completed his experiment, he told them his conclusions, the most important conclusion was that they did not learned nothing from their mistakes , but the doctor’ friends was in shock and they did not listened to him , they decided to leave for Florida to looking for the fountain of youth.
Characters
DR.Heidegger
Physical characteristics: Strange old men with white bear.
Psychological traits: scientific, very intelligent, patient, with great convictions about his experiments, always willing to give a second chance.
Mr.Medbourne
Physical characteristics: old men with white bear.
Psychological traits: He was a rich man, but he was greedy, and he made some bad business deals and he lost his fortune.
Colonel Killigrew
Physical characteristics: old men with white bear, fat, with differents illness.
Psychological traits: He was a great soldier. But he spend his life eating and drinking too much. He is sick all the time.
Widow Wicherly
Physical characteristics: she was quite beautiful, but now she is old, with long gray hair.
Psychological traits: she was conceited, and she thought that she was the most beautiful woman in the town.
The Moral or Teaching of the Story
DR.Heidegger’ friends were unhappy and unfortunate because they made several mistakes in past, they always were lamenting for their lives, but the problem was that they had another opportunity, and they showed the doctor that they did not learned nothing about their mistakes, and they are doing the same things that they did. The doctor shows them that they don’t want to make a real change in their lives .
Personal opinion
Very good story, I have a question, do we are able to learn about our mistakes? How difficult can be turn on the page and start again without ‘’ mistakes ‘’? What are the lessons that we can learn about mistakes of others? I think in many cases we cannot find very good answers for those questions, maybe it happen because we always have a lot of possibilities to do one action, but as Murphy said, If anything can go wrong, it will but in this case I would like to change that phrase like, if we start something in the wrong way, it will be worse every day.
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